the drum|rob fairbanks

A Call for the Church to Repent

I have long felt like my calling in life has been to help change the mind of the church. Jesus made it clear that he came to proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God was near. The imperatives related to this declaration were for his followers to believe and repent (Mark 1). Repentance, while it means many things, at its simplest, most rendered definition it means to change one’s mind. I believe that is what the church in the West must do - change its mind regarding its identity.

Part of repentance means to turn from one direction to another. The negative side of the turning happens by deconstructing what has become of the church in what many would call Christendom. Though it is not the thrust of this post, the church must turn from its over-reliance on power and cultural control, it's political co-opting, and it's baptized mimicry of a consumer driven society (Have you visited many churches lately? IMHO, most churches are discipling people further into the consumer life, all the while Jesus actually calls us to deny ourselves and to daily take up our cross).

The positive direction of repentance is most activated by reimagining how we engage culture. I feel that as a leader, this is one of my most important functions…to get people to dream about how we live into Christ's prayer for his Kingdom to come in our local context just as it is in heaven.

One of the exercises that I use in my teaching is to have groups imagine leaving where they are, where the church is a siloed subset of whatever else is going on in their lives, and move to Grasse, France to plant a church with me. The reason I do this is to push them to imagine what life would look and feel like if they were to relocate to a context where less than 1% of the populace go to church. Not only to relocate, but to move there as missionaries.

Because I am semi-familiar with Grasse (pictured here), I know that on any given Sunday, out of the one hundred thousand or so people that live there, only about 70 to 90 people go to church. You will find around 15-20 in the historic Catholic Church and roughly 50-60 in two other storefront congregations (This information raises serious questions about church planting in most U.S. cities for me). One other note, while finding only a sliver of worshiping Christians in this once Christianized nation, you can find up to half of the hundred thousand people worshiping in a mosques. That's right, up to 50,000 Muslims in this western city. So, the question begs to be considered;

• If we were "sent" to Grasse, France as missionaries would you live life the same way we currently do in your normal lives?
• What would it affect? Would it influence how you spend your time?
• Would it impact where you and I live? Would we choose where we live in the same way we do in the United States?
• Would it challenge the way you spend your money?

I honestly don’t think so. I think it would change everything. See, by changing locations to a place where our intended purpose is recalibrated and the trappings of Christianity no longer hold any benefit or sway, we can begin to realize that the church’s identity must be recast if we hope to impact Western culture. Through answering these questions, we begin to bump up against some of the issues and challenges that the church (the people of God) must become aware of...and repent of if we are to regain our true identity.

r

Church Planting in Context - Incarnating the Gospel

Incarnating the Gospel

What does it mean to incarnate the Gospel? Observing God’s love toward humanity best captures the idea of incarnation. It is actualized by God taking on human flesh and lovingly drawing near to His creation. As a matter of fact, in John 1 it is articulated by verse 14, which says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Literally, it means God came near, even moving into the neighborhood.

As we plant Immanuel Church, one of the contouring values we have is seeking to dream of how we can incarnate the Gospel in a particular context. In our case, that is the north central area of Spokane, Washington (Click here for demographics of the area). It has become our parish, if you will.

An Ecclesial (tricky word for "church") Problem

One of the problems that the church faces in America is Christians often envision their church involvement one directionally. By that I mean, people make decisions about where they should go based upon what they can get out of it. It is kind of like a laundry list of items like:

• Whether we like the speaker (does he have nice hair...does he have any hair? :))
• Whether we like the worship style (or how accomplished the musicians are)
• Whether our kids are cared for the way we think they should be
• Whether the facility is comfortable
• Whether we feel at ease with the people who attend, etc. 

Now, I am not saying the following to produce guilt of any kind, but allow me to poke at those reasons a wee bit. Each of them, if we are honest, are somewhat “me” centered.

An Alternative

While we may fairly debate the validity of each of those reasons for attending a church, if we believe that incarnation is important, it is also essential that we consider attending in a location that has some proximity to where we live. In a word, we MUST consider the missional aspect of where we attend.

A Challenge

Here’s a challenge as it relates to Immanuel here in Spokane - and it is two prong:

1. Join our Team - If you live in the North Central area of Spokane, will you consider joining our team of missionaries as we seek to genuinely display and declare the Gospel to this unique and under resourced part of our city. Some of you live in the very area we are attempting to reach, yet drive across numerous geographical zones to be a part of another community. That is fine if you clearly sense the Spirit’s call for you to do that, but if you have not considered the missional orientation of the church, take some time and do so. I am persuaded that your mission effectiveness would be enhanced by churching in the same area that you are living...and we certainly could use the partnership.
2. Relocate - If you feel called to be a part of Immanuel Church, would you consider relocating to the North Central? It's called "re-neighboring." I know, I know, that is really counter to how we Americans think, but if we really buy the idea that God’s mission in a context is a calling, we cannot easily dismiss the idea that living in the same area you worship is important. While it may not be imperative in a commuter city, it certainly is not outside of the purview of consideration. Alternatively, maybe if you live in the North Central area and go to a church outside of that area, you should mull over the idea of moving there.

If you are interested in helping in any way, just comment on this blog and I will get back to you promptly or email me at (Click here).

Living, investing and “embedding” in the same area you gather to worship is not a new idea. It has been a proven missiological concept for a very long time…it is as old as, well…the moment God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood.

Peace y’all!

r

I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet - Church Planting

Welcome back to my dead-ish blog. I fell off the blogging grid awhile back and have had a tough time climbing back on. Hopefully I can maintain some rhythm as we approach fall. 

What brought me out of the blog black-hole? Exciting Mission activity!

I wrote a bit ago about a church-planting venture we began (click here). Well, we have been working assiduously on that – gathering a core team, doing mission and planning for the future.

September 29th!!!

Some of that future is upon us. We will be publically launching on September 29^th. God has been providentially conspiring so many things that it would be too lengthy to describe them all, but one of the things you might be interested in is our partnership with Life Center here in Spokane. Pastor Joe Wittwer has been a friend and colleague for over 20 years and we, Immanuel Church are excited to join forces with them as we seek to display and declare the Kingdom of God here in Spokane and beyond.

A Starting Location

One of the ways this partnership will take form is by us utilizing their former building on 708 W. Nora. Our community listening efforts have led us to the conclusion that God wants to plant us in the north-central part of Spokane. The facility is about a 100-year-old building “smack-dab” in the center of this under-resourced area. Over half of core team resides in that area and several of the key ministries we are connected with as well (Including Christ Clinic where Robi works as a counselor). Also, the facility is about 2 blocks from one of Spokane’s inner-cities high schools, appropriately named North Central.

Two ways you might participate with us:

1. Pray for us as we continue to seek God for clarity on how we are to love and engage this area of our city. It is more than just strategy. We desperately desire to hear from God on what good work he has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).
2. Consider joining us. If you reside in Spokane and sense God calling you into a new mission venture, please consider helping. Every church needs people to serve, but many of you are call to a more front-lines mission in a city. This might be for you. You might even be living somewhere else and sense the gentle voice of the Spirit asking you to relocate. If so, I would love to pray for you and chat with you about what we are dreaming of and how you might partner. You can reach me at this email address - Click here

Ok, that is it for now…

I will be sending out more deets as they become available.  Thanks for your interest.

Peace,

r

 

A Screen shot of the front of the Building

Here is a picture of the inside of the Building

Church Planting in Real Time

I've been involved in church planting for a long time now. Practically my whole adult life. The first church that I planted was 26 years ago. It was a massive learning experience and an abysmal failure. We closed it with a sad groan after 3 arduous years. I don’t know if you remember the CD some years ago by Lauren Hill, but it was entitled, “The Miseducation of Lauren Hill.”  In a very real sense, my first church planting experience could’ve been given a similar title – The Re-Education of Rob Fairbanks. For the first two or three years of pastoring prior to launching out in the church plant, I found my tutelage in the “Church Growth Movement.” It was an inebriating experience. As a voracious learning, I drank long, hard and often. With my competitive orientation, the “by the numbers” approach to a growing a large church became a drug of sorts, which deeply confused my motivation for planting.  I have written about that wonderful/painful progression elsewhere, so I won’t go into detail here, but suffice it to say that I needed breaking (which happened) and re-educating (which I am still doing almost 30 years later).

The second church that I planted was in 1991, 22 years ago (New Community). I went on to pastor that church for close to 20 years.  To say that it was an easy experience would be to lie, but the community of people that eventually emerged ended up being a beautiful and fruitful symbol of what church could be in a west coast city of the U.S.

Running parallel with both of those experiences I have had, in varying degrees, the privilege of assisting in planting eight other churches.

For the last four years I've been leading an organization with a stated purpose that is exclusively church planting. Its mission statement reads: “The mission of Christian Associates is to establish churches who follow Jesus in transforming their world.” I got the chance to drop in on communities from North and Latin America, through most of Europe, all the way to Russia. It was an exhilarating experience. (Link to Christian Associates)

Now, at 54, I'm embarking on a new church-planting venture. Some have wondered about my sanity. Heck, I've wondered about my sanity. I've always said that church planting is a young man's sport. The church is called Immanuel Church and is in Spokane, WA. While I have a veritable lifetime of experience in church planting, I find that moving back onto the ground as a practitioner brings about many challenges that I simply don't have pithy answers for (I am finding that it is much easier to be a strategist when you don’t have to actually put it into practice - :-/). I am a bit of novice all over again. Well, I don't want to suggest that I don’t have any answers. I do have a general idea of how to go about this and a functional progression in mind of how church planting happens best in Western culture. Perhaps I will talk little bit about that in future blogs but it is my intention to travel along those guidelines that I have, along with others, discovered over the last 27 years.

Some have wondered if I will utilize methodologies for church planting such as an "attractional" approach or simply planting a "worship service" as I begin this new project. Seems like odd wonderings. If I did, it would be the first time. We have always operated out of a decentralized approach where the "gathered" community was responsive to what the church was doing in the world...even before there was "missional" language to describe it.

I guess the only thing I can promise is:

• I'll try not to be stupid regarding things I should already know.
• I will attempt to stay in a humble, learning posture.
• I will seek to honestly travel along the pathway of my personal convictions about how I believe mission happens.
• I will seek as much as possible to follow sensitively where I perceive the Holy Spirit is leading.
• and all 4 of those will happen within a community of real people who are trying to live out the Gospel of the Kingdom in a particular context.

Is that enough?

I hope so. I can't think of anything else besides that as a way forward.

Peace,

r

Using Church Resources in Alignment with a Missional Approach

I believe that there is a direct correlation between how a church spends its money and its effectiveness in engaging the world. If the church spends all its money on itself (I mean using it to run the “show” – I would include staff, building, etc. in this), there's a pretty good chance that it's going to be stalled out as far as growth is concerned. I am shocked (although, I shouldn’t be) by how most churches use their money. Seriously, many churches feel like it is a herculean achievement to allocate 10% of their money outside of the building and its members. 

One of the churches that I've had the privilege of helping start, Emmaus Church, actually spends 50% of its budget outside of their building/members, in the community where they reside.

Their Budget looks like:

• 50% - General expense
• 25% - Global Engagement
• 25% - Local Outreach

The Global and Local would include things such as trans-local outreach, evangelism, social justice, community development and church planting. It is incredibly ambitious for a group to spend that much money outside of running the church, but I think it is the direction churches have to go to ensure that they are viable and missional into the future.

The church plant that I am starting is going to initially use a breakdown of:

• 66% - General
• 12% - Trans-local (out of our region)
• 12% - Local Outreach
• 10% - Save

I obviously don’t have the faith that David Von has at Emmaus :)

Regardless of allotment percentages, a church has to think/pray long and hard about how they use the resources God has charged them to manage for His Kingdom. A church has to settle whether it really wants to behave “missionally,” or just use the word in its Mission Statement! To be sure, it is not a magic formula or a panacea for engaging the world. Money is only one facet in how a community operates. That said, if the church’s identity is “missional” than it is imperative that it is somehow reflective in its use of money.

Do you know of another church that is giving away more than Emmaus? Budgeting 50% of their resouces to be given away? I'm sure there are - I just don't know of them.

How much does your community set aside to be used for something other than "your community?"

r

Thankful

Today as I sit in my house in Portland, sipping coffee, and listening to the sweet sound of rain fall on the ground outside, I am thrust into waves of peace. I am reflecting on a month of learning, laughter, increased friendship, sorrow, and deep joy. The past three weeks I got to spend listening to amazing classmates (who I now consider friends) discuss and grow in what it means to be the church. I again learned that there is no perfect church, mostly because there is no perfect person. And in my most vulnerable moments, I have to remind myself that the church is people. Beautiful, broken, alive, and challenging people. 

We read the Gospel and understand maybe a tenth of what Jesus was trying to teach and model to us. Reading through Mark 10 and 11 a few minutes ago, I am in awe of how little I seek the Kingdom of God and instead seek the opinion of the world. How often do I stop and listen? How little do I remind myself that joy is a gift and a choice? How terrible am I at thinking of myself as a little child, hopeful that God redeems and saves? How often do I care more for my possessions than I do for my present relationship with God? 

All of these questions I examined this past term and found that there is no greater answer than the person of Christ. And for me, that begins by being thankful and being disciplined enough to listen wholeheartedly to God. So today, I don’t have any huge theological answers to how the church should function better, serve God more, or be wholly united. But I am able to live into the posture of being thankful. Thankful for a class who tested me, encouraged me, and put up with me. Thankful for a Creator who is infinitely more able and loving than I. 

Thankful.

Katherine

Church Planting

From Rob...

As I as reading the Bible today I came across this statement by Moses to God.

‎"If your presence will not go with us, do not send us up from here." Ex 33:15

It is a sending (missio) passage, but Moses is literally begging God to suspend the mission if He will not accompany him along the way.  Moses makes his case even stronger in the next verse by saying, “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and your people unless you go with us.  What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”  (v. 16)

I am embarking on a new church planting effort, but have a seriousness and tentativeness (unusual for me) about it that reflects Moses’ position.  I am 54.  I have done a lot of things (some even good).  I do not want to plant “A church.”  I do, however, crave God and his love movement toward the world.  My prayer is found couched within Moses’ request…please don’t send me unless Your Presence will go with and before me/us.

Would you be willing to pray with Robi and I?  Pray for passion and clarity and teaming and overwhelming compassion for our city…and most of all, for God to accompany the effort with His grand life.

Amen

r

Being Missional Will Kill Me

    Relationship. This is the word I keep coming back to the more I learn about the true calling of the Church and the people of God. Everything centers on the idea that to be a “city on a hill” we have to have relationships with the people around us that will allow them to see what the family of God looks like and what being a dedicated disciple of Christ really means. And, yes, I love the idea of “doing life” with fellow Christians and living in a way that shows what the gospel is about.

    BUT, I am terrified at the idea of relational. I’m not kidding; I am not good at first impressions, holding coherent conversations, making small talk, meeting new people, etc. Don’t get me wrong, God has given me a heart for people and I love being around those whom I already know, but for some reason God also made me a person that would rather stay in a corner than engage others. So when I think about starting conversations with strangers and putting myself out there with other Christians, it scares me.

    At times it is easy for me to tell myself that God must have a more “behind-the-scenes” plan for my place in the Church, since He made me an introvert. However, I have realized that in some way or another Jesus calls everyone to radically change who they are and how they act when they join the family of God. He asks us to lay down idols and sins and our old selves in order to abide in Him and rescript our stories to include the fullness of life that He wants to give us. Jesus says to us in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” What if, for me, denying myself means denying the part of me that would rather not talk to anyone? It might be that being missional will kill that part of me, but I am called to die to myself anyway; “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Reaching out to strangers and engaging the world might scare me, but if stepping outside of my shell and into Christ’s power allows me to be a part of the work of the Kingdom of God, then it will be entirely worth the pain of death.

Kate

I Don't Want to Hate the Church

      I venture to say, based on observations as far as I am able to see, more people are calling themselves Christians while more Christians are denying the title for all its negative connotations. Have you heard anyone claim their faith as “believer” or “follower of Christ” or “Jesus lover”? That’s dandy, and true. But the term “Christian” has been taken away from us, much as the symbol of the rainbow has. As a young person learning that I am in the midst of much needed revelation and change for “the church,” I fear the negativity toward the church. I fear for non-believers because it will keep them away, and for believers because of unforgiveness and bitterness toward those who have been getting it wrong. I fear the anger I’ve seen. I fear more splitting, more division dangerously close at hand within the whole Christian body. I pray it doesn’t happen that leaders who are making right changes due to convictions about how the church has been failing begin to find new titles. I don’t want to see a new movement rise up again only to lose itself in its mission once more. I want to see the church be taken back; for the term Christian to be taken back.  To bring them back to mean the body of Christ and Christ-like. The only way to know those meanings is through Christ himself and we find him in the Word, our Bibles, and in prayer. I think this means we must look at the broken church with a heart of forgiveness. Jesus saw the broken and flawed and he forgave them, then said, “now sin no more.” Forgiveness and correction. Jesus was, is, for the church, his bride, so I want to be, too. Jesus’ heart probably breaks for her, I want mine to, too. Let us lift the church back up to what it should be, not break it down.

   “And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had… they worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity- all while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.” Acts 2.44, 46-47

-Ashley

Joyfully Removed

    The Western church is no longer center stage in modern culture, and as we are shunted aside it seems reasonable to think that becoming more like the world will entice more people into our buildings. Then I come upon Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Hold up, what?! Blessed are who? It might be a small stretch to equate marginalization and persecution, but I am beginning to think that being pushed out of mainstream culture could be the best thing that has happened to the body of Christ today.

    In his book The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch points to the church in two different times and geographic areas, the early Christian body and the underground church in China. Both of these groups of believers became vibrant and large communities during harsh and unrelenting periods of persecution. Hirsch sees that “Persecution drove both the early Christian movement and the Chinese church to discover their truest nature as an apostolic people” and it “acted as a means to keep these movements true to their faith and reliant on God.”

    But how did these communities turn persecution to power to promote the Kingdom of God? James calls out from the Word, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” Think about that for a minute. This isn’t telling us to tolerate trouble or to “grin and bear it”, but instead be joyful in it—have a deep, indescribable emotion welling up in us whenever we face trials because of faith in the Lord Jesus. What if, instead of pushing back as we are pushed aside or fearing persecution for our faith, the Western church opened ourselves to the possibility of being collectively JOYFUL? How much more would we be able to point the way to the Kingdom of God if our joy in all situations shone through? Something attracted millions of converts in the early and Chinese churches. Maybe this joy in persecution promised to us by our living Savior can be the way we truly live into our calling as a missional and sent church. Maybe this strange joy from hardship can revitalize us and help us be the instrument and foretaste of the Kingdom we were meant to be for the world.

Kate